Judge slams mum whose daughters died in hot car

A US mother whose children died after being left in a hot vehicle has been sentenced to 40 years in prison.

In 2017, Amanda Hawkins, then 19, left her two daughters, aged 2 and 1, in her car overnight while visiting a friend at her house.

Now, the Texas mother has pleaded guilty to two felony counts of abandoning or endangering a child causing imminent danger of death, bodily injury or physical or mental impairment, and two counts of injury to a child.

Amanda Hawkins received a 40-year sentence. (Kerr County Sheriff's Office)

The sentence was handed down following a day of testimony and the reading out of impact statements at the Kerr County courtroom on December 12.

"Those precious little girls would still be here today if this had not happened," Judge Keith Williams said, as reported by Hill Country Breaking News.

"People in our community take better care of their pets than you took care of your kids."

On June 6, 2017, Hawkins drove Addyson, 2, and Brynn, 1, to a friend's house in Kerrville, leaving them in her vehicle overnight. Temperatures throughout the day had reached around 30 degrees Celsius.

According to law enforcement, Hawkins was inside the air-conditioned home with friends while her daughters sat trapped in the vehicle.

There were also claims the car's engine had been running at one point while the girls were inside, but that a teenage boy at the home later slept in the car and then turned it off and rolled the windows up, not realising the girls were in there.

The teen, Kevin Franke, was originally charged with manslaughter and abandonment, but those counts were replaced with two counts of first-degree murder, according to records obtained by PEOPLE.

Franke is now 18 and is being tried as an adult, with his trial set to begin on April 29, 2019.

It wasn't until noon the next day that Hawkins found her daughters in the vehicle, taking them out and bathing them before taking them to hospital. She later explained her actions, saying she feared the consequences of seeking medical help.

She took her daughters to a medical centre in a "grave condition", claiming they had collapsed after smelling flowers during a visit to a local park.

Judge Williams accused Hawkins of lying throughout the incident and afterwards, in letters she sent from jail.

"This is by far the most horrific case of child endangerment that I have seen in the 37 years I have been in law enforcement," Sheriff Hierholzer said in a statement following the mother's arrest.

Kerr County District Attorney Lucy Wilke said she was "pleased" with the sentencing.

Hawkins had previously said, "I will accept whatever the punishment may be. There are no excuses for what I did."